I’ve seen the Talking Freddy Krueger a couple of times, always in the box too. Always pass it up though.
Why do they have to keep making awesome things that deserve my money?
The Dream Master is the point where things began to spiral downward. Dream Warriors is noted for having turned Freddy into the stand-up comedian of horror, but it maintained a balance between the macabre and the silly. Here, the scales begin to tilt in favor of the latter element, as what was once “quirky” now becomes “stupid”.
Director Renny Harlin decides to continue the trend of dream-related wackiness begun in the previous film, but decides to up the ante and make things even goofier. This sets Freddy on a path that gradually transforms him into a live-action cartoon character, one film at a time. By the time we reach Freddy’s Dead, the series will have almost completely lost its way.
Story-wise, Dream Warriors, The Dream Master and The Dream Child form a nice little arc with lots of continuing plot threads and returning characters. While The Dream Master is a necessary link in the chain, it is nevertheless the weakest. Alice usurps Kristen early on as star of the show, a move I found fairly unnecessary. Kristen could have easily filled in Alice’s place throughout the fourth and fifth installments, making the story arc even tighter. That’s not to say Alice is an especially bad character, but I honestly liked Kristen better and she seemed robbed of the chance to let the audience get more attached to her.
Speaking of Kristen, Patricia Arquette bows out of the role and is replaced by Tuesday Knight with this film. She does an admirable job and I never found that her portrayal or appearance really deviated from Arquette’s standard in any noticeable manner. Lisa Wilcox gives us Alice, the new heroin of the series, who undergoes an interesting evolution throughout the course of the film. She begins as a meek daydreamer, but as Freddy’s threat grows ever worse, and she absorbs more “powers” from her dead buddies, she becomes far more outspoken and strong-willed. The idea of Alice being able to “absorb powers” is more than a little silly and makes for a pretty ridiculous climactic battle against Krueger.
Along for the ride is the usual host of nobodies, destined to die by all manner of horrible means. The Dream Master features a pretty uneven mix of kills, so far as quality goes. I’m rather fond of the “suck face” death sequence, myself. The “roach motel” death feels a bit like cheating on Freddy’s part, in all the films, I believe this one is hands down Freddy’s most vulgar display of power, but it’s still pretty cool and creative. On the downside, you have to deal with “invisible ninja Freddy” as well as several underwhelming death sequences. The lead-up to many of the deaths are quite good, particularly Kincaid’s, while the actual kill’s don’t really pay off.
If there’s one novel concept given a spotlight in this film, it’s that Freddy likes to collect the souls of the people he kills, absorbing them into himself as a means to increase his power. Renny Harlin executes this with some very striking visuals, such as the faces of his victims embedded in his flesh. The final action sequence in the movie, following a fight scene with the powered-up Alice, takes us on a ride through Freddy’s innards, as we see all of his victims writhing in torment. They then escape through his flesh, which looks especially cool.
The Dream Master isn’t all bad and, indeed, has some very cool moments. If you don’t like this sillier side of Freddy then I’m sorry, because it’s going to get worse for the next two movies.
